I always have to listen to people call us Sony Ponies, though we’ve been Xbox fans since the early days. So we need to discuss Xbox’s showcase. There’s a lot of people bragging out there and we’ve got questions and pushback.

I see a lot of people saying this was the best conference of the year. On the surface did MS out-due Sony? Yes but what about under the surface? Gears of War, Indiana Jones, Fable and Perfect Dark have no release dates. Then given Microsoft’s history of lying and under delivery, there’s no way I’m believing those games will deliver. 

Everything was on game pass and I looked at most of it as shovelware. Since this is what MS have been putting on there. The trailers will look good and check the boxes, but how many times do people have to get fooled before they pick up on what’s happening?

Here’s something to think about. Remember when everyone was hyping Starfield and saying it was a good game? They showed off the new expansion and I haven’t really seen anyone talking about it.

I did like seeing Gears of War E-Day, but there was still some stuff to remember. It’s being made by the same people who made the two worst Gears of Wars, now without Rod Ferguson. Cliff Bleszinski said that he never tried to do an E-Day prequel because he never felt he could do the lore justice. So how is The Initiative going to make a good E-Day game when its own creator felt he couldn’t?

We finally got some Perfect Dark gameplay and I liked it.  It was good to see a game with gadgets and not just a cell phone. But why is this in the modern day? Why does Joanna’s face look like that?

Doom: The Dark Ages looked decent but didn’t blow me away. I liked the shield, but I hope they make it more like 2016. I wasn’t a fan of the changes made in Eternal especially having to chainsaw to get ammo, platforming filler and enemies like the Marauder.

Call of Duty is CoD. I don’t think a direct was needed for this. This is supposed to be the true sequel to Black Ops 2 ,and they’re missing some characters, while adding new ones. The lady that’s your handler is a strong natural born leader. I’m wondering why you have to tell me this, if she’s the leader? The rest of it just got stranger, they bragged you can run in any direction. The also said one of the campaign maps is the largest they ever made. After last years campaign, you should be wondering exactly how long it is, and is it using the warzone map? Did you see how it’s been segmented across game pass tiers?

When it comes to Fable, it was another mostly CG trailer. It doesn’t help that it looked similar to one or two other games at the show. It was one of the games that just blends together with the others. In fact, I thought South of Midnight was Fable gameplay.

Indiana Jones still doesn’t look good.  It’s like they had a walking simulator as a prototype and decided to stick an action game on top of it. I’d think it would be easier to use Wolfenstein’s gameplay as a base.

Outside of the internally developed MS games, a few external 3rd parties caught my attention. The MGS3 Remake looked cool and I’m looking forward to it. The next game was Stalker and it had the best atmosphere of any game at the show, plus it had a release date. Though questions persist if it will actually make that date.

Microsoft went on to then show a white all digital Series X, a 1TB Series S and a 2TB Series X. We didn’t even realize the price had shot up, until someone brought it up. Somehow people are comparing this to the PS3 revisions. When the 60GB PS3 came out it was $600. Once the 80GB model was out it took the top spot as the $600 console. As much as we’re not fans of mid gen pro consoles, the PS4 Pro was $400, the same as the launch PS4. Xbox One X launched at $500 with double the hard drive space and 6 times the graphical power.  MS is charging $100 for storage on the galaxy black Series X. The 1TB Series S is now the same cost the regular Series X was discounted to. The digital only white Series X is $450 without the option of adding a disk drive. The base XSX and S have quietly went up to their original price at retailers.

Was the MS conference the best they’ve had in the last few years? Yes, but I can’t say it was better than Sony’s. I didn’t even care Sony’s showcase that much. Concord looked DOA, putting the the PC ports to the front of the line is an L, and Astro Bot stole the show and partially salvaged it. But given MS’s lies and downgrades, everyone should know they’re about to be letdown.